


Like A Mirror

by EmmG



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, F/M, Pining, Time Travel Fix-It, Unrequited Love, Young Solas, happyish ending, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-19 07:55:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5959564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmmG/pseuds/EmmG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He destroyed everything and gives it back to her the only way he can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Broken Mirror

Love has left her eyes.

Only horror remains as she flees from him, but there are too many corpses, too much blood, and she slips, she falls, she can’t get up. For she is fractured and broken, just like her world, and he is the architect of their mutual demise. The Dread Wolf has always feared dying alone, and in this moment of shared mania it seems like she would gladly grant that confined terror realization, if not out of retribution or spite then at least as a final blow of justice. The last one she’ll ever strike.

But he catches her only wrist and pins her down and they both weep, both mourn the loss of their realities.

“Murderer,” she says as he kisses her. Her breath is blood and salt.

“Harellan,” she cries as he presses their foreheads together. Her tears are fire and despair.

“Vhenan,” she sobs as he presses words of love and forgiveness to her skin. Her voice is resolution and misery.

What a glorious failure. He’s never been brought so low. He sacrificed what never belonged to him for a chance at perfection; a type of purity his mind remembered as being superior, but in the ashes of his failure he is forced to reconcile with the truth that _this_ would have been enough.

What _she_ offered so willingly – lovingly – would have been enough.

She would have taken him back and washed the blood from his hands.

But she can’t redeem him now. She has no home to welcome him to, and he no world to lay at her feet.

“No, stay back. I don’t need your pity,” she whispers, horrified, as she sees his lips move. “I will see my world end. I will see you alone, without your People, without your Arlathan. Without me.”

But he says, “Sleep, ma sa’lath,” and so she does.

He took it from her when she met him in battle, tore the amulet her Tevinter friend had poured all his power into from around her throat. He never got to ask whether she meant to use it to reverse time and kill him while he was still weak or attempt to sway him with mercy and truth. He didn’t want to know, still doesn’t.

The amulet shatters.

It’s a magic he can control. He can control almost anything now, and it does not matter for nothing remains but ruins and a world that is heartbeats from its end. He restored nothing and destroyed everything.

His fingers dig into her sides as he lifts her and worm their ways into a fresh wound. She bleeds all over him, and the last thing her world knows is the rhythmic dripping of her blood as he carries her through the portal of brilliant green light that tears through the sky with the same intensity as once the Breach had.

He shakes when he lowers her to the grass and heals her injuries.

He does not smile at the familiarity of Arlathan. It is no longer home.

But at least he is where he meant to end up.

The Wolfling stares at him.

He is young, but already bitter. Not a sliver of innocence remains. Solas remembers those days. Years, mere moments, before he picked up the mantle of Fen’Harel but long since he ceased being mere Pride. He rises and they circle each other; the bloody, older, battered version looking tiredly down upon its young reflection.

“I have your eyes,” the Wolfling says.

“Yes.”

“Your voice.”

“Yes.”

“But not your heart.”

“Not yet.”

Solas surges forward and the two wolves clash, but as he is now he could put the entire pantheon to shame so it is an unfair fight. He grips the thick mane of dark hair and crashes the Wolfling’s head against the dragonbone surface of a tribute to Sylaise.

“You will listen,” Solas says.

And the Wolfling has no choice but to obey.

He feels – remembers – the assault of memories as he passes them over to his younger self. It’s a warm, sizzling feeling in his blood before regret strikes. Then disbelief. Anger. It is a merciless invasion, and his own mind splinters at the edges as the Wolfling trembles, the experience intensified tenfold for him.

Solas steps back and watches as he drops to his knees, fingers digging into the wet earth for support.

“Mythal,” the Wolfling gasps.

But that horror is soon replaced with something entirely new.

Solas observes himself drag an unsteady hand down his throat and toward his chest; blunt nails dig into flesh, cuts left behind welling with blood.

He’s never loved, Solas knows.

The Wolfling has his hands hovering over Lavellan’s face, never coming into contact with skin. He wants to touch her so desperately. He doesn’t know how to worship her and he feels – he feels so much, too much, and he is terrified at this new sensation that’s wedged itself into his heart.

“You did this to her,” he says. “We did.”

“Not you.”

“You are what I shall become. The fault is equal parts mine.”

He lets out a loud sob, but still does not touch her. A wail of despair starts deep in his throat, and then the Wolfling is burying his face in his hands. He shakes with tears that won’t come; mourns what he will cause; grieves all that he shall lose.

Solas pulls him up by the collar.

“Let me help,” the Wolfling pleads. “You are crumbling. You took too much. This power – it is ripping you apart.”

“No.”

“Let me help,” the Wolfling insists, seizing his older self by the shoulders. “You will be able to stay with her. Please. _Please_.”

“I cannot remain.” Solas pushes him at arm-length and takes his chin. His own eyes stare back at him, wide, tear-rimmed, unfamiliar. “You saw what will come to pass. Warn Mythal and she shall protect herself. Stand vigil. Kill them all, if you must, but do not act as I have.”

The Wolfling’s gaze wanders. “I will not hurt her,” he whispers. He isn’t speaking of Mythal, any longer. “I could never.”

“Give her the world she deserves,” Solas says. “Do not destroy it.”

He steps back.

“Wait,” the Wolfling calls. “What will you do?”

“I will die.”

“Alone,” the Wolfling breathes, voice catching.

Solas inclines his head. “Alone.”

“Dareth shiral.”

The green light from the portal sinks into the lines of his face and he sees his reflection in a pool of water. Wounded and done, he is. Solas feels the exhaustion in his bones and he wants to collapse one last time by her side. He wants to inhale her scent and trail his lips over her neck. Will she still favor the scent of juniper, he wonders, after he is gone. Will she retain her habit of recounting the same story time and again?

Little things. It was the little things that sustained him after he walked away.

He has always thought her a fleeting, lovely memento. It seems that he’s become her constant.

“Dareth shiral, emma lath,” Solas murmurs.

Perhaps it will not hurt. Perhaps there will be but nothingness.

The Wolfling watches the one who calls himself Solas disappear. He seals the gateway with a flick of his wrist, and just like that it is all over. His reality dies with him.

And now amends must be made for what their Pride has caused - will cause.

He draws closer to the woman he now loves so desperately, passionately, suddenly. He pulls her into his lap and whispers promises of devotion, and the words feel like they’ve been spoken a thousand times before – and they have, by him, but they haven’t. She is his, yet she’s never belonged to him.

He’s tasted her lips, knows their softness and occasional dryness, even if he’s yet to experience intimacy.

He loves.

He loves too much and it is a delicious burden.

She wakes as he is caressing her hair. Every wound he heals, he memorizes. And he remembers. Little recollections. The scar through her eyebrow. The one at her temple. The love bite that once adorned her neck; he knows the exact spot _his_ lips have cajoled.

“Please do not run,” the Wolfling tells her. “The one you called Solas was your vhenan’ara. I am not yet him, but I am yours. I will not leave you as he did.”

He sees the recognition in her eyes, like a flash of terror, and then she is crying.

She isn’t his. Not yet. But she doesn’t run.


	2. Not Solas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, he wishes he could be the monster she's lost.

In his memories, she calls them Crystal Grace.

He understands the meaning, but not the words. The tongue she uses is crude and coarse, lacking the lilting quality of Elvhen, but Solas speaks it fluently and makes every sound a beautiful promise as he praises her.

"It is you," Solas says, braiding the ivory petals into her silver hair. "You are moonlight." He caresses the side of her face with a blossom and wishes it were his lips. "You are so pale."

"Like chalk," Lavellan murmurs.

"Like Crystal Grace."

The Wolfling does not know of such a flower. He remembers, but he does not know.

He wishes to lay a bouquet of Crystal Grace at her feet.

*

He takes her to Mythal and the All-Mother is kind. She welcomes the grim truth he brings with a polite smile bleeding an understanding so poignant it could have only been born out of wisdom. Her arms are comfort and warmth as she embraces the one her loyal protector has come to love so desperately.

"You drank from my well," Mythal whispers.

"I shall join you in mourning," Mythal promises.

"He was my wolf too," Mythal says.

And it is those words that finally undo the grieving woman in her arms.

The Wolfling stays away, head bowed in silent melancholy. Those tears aren't for him; he has no right to wipe them away.

*

Compassion shadows her every step of the way. It is the only spirit she tolerates. Regret wants in like an animal that has tasted blood and now hungers for nothing but; Grief is desperate to win her good graces; Love is quieter but it too sees her as a broken dam of emotions, and wishes to feast upon all she has to give.

"She misses her friend," Compassion says. "Loud words and obscene secrets, he was. Evenings of peace after heartbreak and revelations by the campfire. Broken son from a broken family and she, too, was broken and together they were not."

"Dor-ee-an," the Wolfling plucks the name from Solas' memories. Her language is unruly; he cannot do it justice.

"I can recreate his likeness for her."

"Will she smile?"

"She is different," Compassion admits, "I do not know."

But the Wolfling concedes and the spirit takes on the form of a tall man.

Lavellan does not smile.

She lashes out at him.

"How dare you insult his memory?" she hisses at him, at them both, and Compassion vanishes but he remains, transfixed by the raw anger of her glare.

She speaks with an accent, but words aren't needed to translate the hatred of her tone. The Wolfling steps away from her.

It is all she allows him. To retreat ever further, to disappear from view, and he does not know if she will ever relent and accept his affection.

"I wanted to give you comfort," he confesses, eyes downcast.

"You can't," she answers, voice like poison.

*

He hates him.

He writes his name and burns in. Tries it on his tongue and wishes he could carve the feeling out with a knife.

But it is the name she loves.

And so when she asks what she is to call him, the Wolfling does not hesitate.

He sits shyly by her side, hands wringing in his lap, as he says, "Will you not call me Solas?"

The look of pity in her eyes is too much to bear. He feels foolish and young. Unworthy -- but he is not, he is better, he has not murdered in the name of a memory and his jaws do not drip blood unlike the Old Wolf's -- and yet.

And yet.

"No," she says, and turns away.

He does not see her for days.

*

Solas paints frescoes.

He is grandiose in everything he does.

The Wolfling walks his memories with bittersweet anticipation. He knows what will happen before he sees it. The Fade is kind to him, it does not color the memoir with his sorrow but merely mirrors the past.

"You smell of elfroot," Lavellan says.

"You are kind, but no liar," Solas responds. "I reek of paint and sweat."

She rests her chin on his shoulder when he slouches to reach a difficult spot on the wall, and his laughter rumbles through his chest. The Wolfling touches his breast; he feels, he remembers.

She kisses him first. Behind the ear and down his neck. Chaste brushing of the lips against his flesh as Solas finishes the sunset with a final streak of brilliant red; then, thinks twice of it, and adds a few specks of gold to the horizon.

When at last he does tilt her chin upward to guide her mouth to his, Lavellan blushes and giggles, her breath wafting against his face in soft, hot puffs. "I had tea," she reveals her great and terrible secret.

"I will endure," Solas says. He bumps his nose with hers and they both laugh.

The Wolfling scoffs and wills the image to dissipate.

He seeks out Wisdom who curls around him and sighs, deep and saddened. "I cannot help."

"Why?"

"I will tell you to endure and you shall try, but you will fail. It is inevitable."

It is like hearing an echo of Solas snickering into his ear. He can almost feel the old man lean over his shoulder and mock him in his hoarser, stronger voice. The same voice that made her smile time and again.

He does not want to endure. He wants to _know_.

*

"We call them Pearl's Tears," he says, tenderly presenting her with an assortment of flowers the color of fresh snow.

Lavellan lifts them to her face and inhales deep. The Wolfling smiles. He gives her the book of poetry he transcribed into her tongue and the little frilly cake Solas once inquired about.

_I baked it for you, she had said._

_Ma vhenan, Solas had answered._

"We do not have Crystal Grace here," the Wolfling conveys with sorrow. "Elvhenan has yet to see it bloom, but I shall find the first blossom for you when the time comes."

"Not Crystal Grace," Lavellan whispers.

Small tremors assault her fingers, threatening her hold on the bouquet. He stills her hand, and she does not pull away.

He presses the cake to her lips and she takes a hesitant bite.

"Not Orlesian," Lavellan laments.

He recites a favored poem of his, holding the book open for her to see even if he knows the words by heart, so often they've been spoken. Practiced.

"Not from his collection," Lavellan sobs.

She drops the flowers.

She doesn't finish the frilly cake.

She does not care about the tome.

But she does cup his cheek, and the Wolfling leans into the contact, shuddering.

"Not him."

Her words are a faint quiver of air, but they cut, they mutilate, they shred his mind.

"I will become him for you," he promises, grasping her hand for he is so very afraid she will pull away again. "Do believe me."

Lavellan smiles. It does not reach her eyes. "You shouldn't," she says very quietly, her hand a warm but dead thing in his. He might as well not be holding it.

But she wants it. She wants Solas back.

Solas who called her his heart and shattered her in the most cruel of ways -- with words of love and a promise of destruction. Solas who took her arm. Solas who ripped her world apart until nothing remained but regret and blood.

She wants that Solas.

*

She comes to see him off. She admires his armor and touches it, exploring the fastenings and little crevices. He is exhilarated at her touch, even though he cannot properly feel it.

Then she is tracing the sharp features of his face, as if memorizing him, even though he will come back. This is not a war, but he is a general and must appear regal.

"Please kiss me," the Wolfling entreats.

He has yet to be kissed.

And she acquiesces.

Her lips are a little dry, but she tastes of tea -- and he loves every subtle undertone, every hint of mint and chamomile. She presses her mouth to his and tilts his head when he does not move. He remembers Solas taking her in his arms and parting her lips with a ferocious kind of hunger, but he cannot and so it remains innocent. Just a peck, not quite a taste, not exactly a kiss.

But his heart has never thundered this much.

"Please," he pleads yet again, taking her only hand in his, "please wait for me. I will not always be as I am."

"He was beyond redemption," she says. Her fingers still dance over his jaw, having escaped his clutches. "He was a monster at the end. Don't strive for that."

"I shall wear his name. Yes, one day I shall."

"Da fenlin," Lavellan breathes. She shakes her head and with that lone gesture he loses her. She retreats to the dark corner of her mind.

Little wolfling, she calls him.

_Little wolfling._

He is not Solas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EH once more, fuck it. I'm making this a three-shot or something. Nothing very long. I want closure lol.


	3. Fen'Harel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His fur darkens.

He hunts Andruil. There is no other word for it.

She draws him into her forest and he runs, he herds her, he presses her flush against the ground and crushes her between his jaws. Her bones grind; he tastes her blood.

She buries an arrow in his neck. It goes deep.

In a clearing where water is as blue as his eyes, he sees his fur has darkened at the collar. It is not mud or charcoal.

He stumbles afterward, no longer a wolf but with the golden hilt still protruding from his throat, as he carries the Huntress' body to lay before Mythal's feet.

Mythal brushes hair the color of a young sunrise from Andruil's face as she kneels to cradle her.

"You will not see me fall," she says, caressing the cold cheek of the beautiful girl-woman before retreating. "Sleep."

Mythal hums a melody time alone remembers.

The Wolfling burns the body at her behest. He pretends not to feel the tearing cry that builds at the back of his throat, a purely animalistic growl of regret and shame.

Andruil was kind, once. As kind as she could be, but kind to her chosen ones nevertheless.

_Greetings, da fen. Will you join us for a hunt?_

_How good you are with your sword. I favor distance myself._

_Shall I teach you how to catch them in the heart each time? Here, pull the string just so._

Lavellan tends to his wounds with her own odd magic. He kisses her hand in thanks, but she does not kiss him back even after he sheepishly inquires if she might, and he trembles for months in the aftermath, remembering how his fur has tarnished.

*

"Mythal's dog has come," Ghilan'nain says. Her blind eyes hold his gaze until he speaks of betrayal to rid himself of her accusing silence.

She bids her herd of halla to flee, leaving her alone and without a following of adoring, innocent creatures. She does not look like a figure of worship; she is fresh snow and white eyelashes and bloodless lips; she is the product of scandalous piety.

Ghilan'nain bares her throat to him in invitation.

"Take a bite," she offers.

He does.

Crimson does not befit her.

*

"I am not here," Solas says, hands clasped at his back as they walk alongside. "You will me into existence."

The Wolfling does not see his reflection as their eyes lock. "I crave clarity," he admits, quiet.

Solas scoffs. His lips twitch in disdain. "I already gave you more than was wise, Puppy."

"You gave me her," the Wolfling whispers. He is not ungrateful, but very confused.

Solas stops and he is forced to follow his lead. His hand shoots up to capture his chin as he peruses his younger self's expression as though he is a curious book -- decidedly not entertaining enough, as he shoves him away, violently so.

The Wolfling staggers, balance forgotten, properly chastised.

"Did I?" Solas asks.

"Think on it," Solas insists.

"I gave _you_ to _her_ ," Solas says and for the first time his mouth shifts into something other than a derisive, thin line. He smiles, and it is infinitely more terrifying. "What better protector than a devoted, besotted wolf?"

"We share a heart, you and I."

"Do not delude yourself."

The Fade is unkind to him today. The Wolfling shuts his eyes and waits for peace. This is a place of comfort; he will not allow a fragment of his lost future to torment him because he is weak and lonely and lovelorn.

When he looks again, Solas is gone.

*

The Wolfling tells Lavellan of his dreams. He does not know why he does it, but he does still and she takes pity upon him.

"Come," she says, extending her hand and wriggling her fingers to spur him on, grinning. It is warm and inviting and he grasps it eagerly. "You have a beautiful voice. Read to me."

Solas has a beautiful voice.

"I am not fluent enough in your language to translate the words as I read them," he confesses, admiring their weaved fingers, hating himself for disappointing her yet again.

"It is all right," Lavellan says. She reclines into a plush chaise with him at her side; the sunset bathes her features in softness and she looks like the woman from Solas' memories, for the briefest of moments, rather than her fragile counterpart.

"There are passages you may fail to understand."

"It is all right," she repeats, closing her eyes.

So he does. He indulges her, he always does, no matter the fancy though she rarely makes requests of him. She never comes to him, it is he who seeks her out.

Indeed like a besotted wolf.

His jaw sets tight, and he cannot tear a singular sound from his throat for the longest time.

"You pity me," he says, at last. He'll take it, is the secret he shields. No need to paint himself even greater a fool in her eyes.

"No," Lavellan replies. She's out of the dream state his voice has put her in. She forces him to look at her. "I pity us both."

"Us both," he echoes in a winded voice.

There is hope in those words, no matter how corrupted.

"I am sorry he hurt you," she says, very quietly. "He hurt me too."

"I would never do such a thing," the Wolfling promises, pressing a kiss to the inside of her wrist. She smells of lilac rather than juniper.

"Would you like for me to kiss you?"

"Only if it is no hardship," he exhales, already staring at her lips.

She does kiss him, and the second time is as chaste as the first. He tries to tilt her head as she did to him, attempts to get a better angle, and even allows himself to hold onto her shoulders to keep her close. His lips part, but hers never do, and he feels like his breath is too hot against her skin. Lavellan acts as if she is comforting a wounded animal; in many ways, more than she'll ever know, it is indeed so.

She does not love him.

He is willing to overlook it.

*

She is a little older than him, but only slightly, and one of Dirthamen's priestesses.

Not a slave.

The Wolfling feels free to return her smile.

"So it is you," she says, having found him after the feast. "You are Mythal's general. The Dread Wolf."

"The Dread Wolf?" he repeats, incredulous and saddened. His head spins from Summer Wine. He's aware of the rumors, the fearful title they've forced upon him, but hearing the words spoken so freely makes them true.

"You shiver," she states after she's kissed his jaw; it is a dark hallway and it remains a mystery to all. "Has no one told you that you are beautiful?"

"No," he admits.

"Do you not have a vhenan?"

"I do."

"It is unfortunate then."

"She will not have me," he feels the need to clarify.

He is intoxicated and spurned and queasy at the thought of his actions, the throats he tore and silent rebellions he crushed. The graves have not been dug and here they are celebrating Mythal's victory, so far away from home. With all those factors raging a war of their own within his mind, it does not feel like a great sacrifice to reveal this shameful secret of his.

"I'll have you," she says, teeth gleaming when her lips curl in a smile.

Her braid is the color of silver, so pale it nearly reflects the dim torchlight. Like Lavellan's.

"Come, Fen'Harel," she says, taking his hand with both of hers.

He buries his face in her hair; it does not smell of juniper, not even of lilac.

*

It feels odd to no longer be a shadow.

It is not unpleasant.

He is recognized wherever he goes and there is fear and a restrained kind of respect in the eyes of those he passes.

The name of Fen'Harel is spoken openly, even though he fails to react to it at times.

He is no longer an accessory to Mythal, but a creature others whisper about in dark corners. He is not a wolf unless he wishes to be, does not consider himself dreadful, but the speculations make him feel like he is more -- like he is closer to what Lavellan lost.

This raw pride must have been what Ghilan'nain experienced after Andruil welcomed her into their circle with a lover's kiss.

*

Mythal gives him holdings of his own.

"I do not recognize their markings," he says after she presents him with servants, whom he greets with an awkward nod and a smile unbecoming of his new position of authority.

"A vallaslin of Fen'Harel," Mythal speaks, quietly, proudly, tracing the cheek of a young girl with her finger before allowing her to depart. "They wear it willingly."

His blood is thick with dismay. "I never wanted it."

"They wear it willingly," Mythal repeats, biting into her words this time. "They think you a kind master after you freed them."

This isn't how he wants to be remembered.

Not as a pattern of ink forever etched into the veins of those whose chains he broke to protect Mythal.

"Fen'Harel," Mythal says, lovingly. "I do like that name."

*

Lavellan notices the change immediately after he takes her face between his now-rough hands.

"I will kiss you," he announces.

"Very well," she concedes. "Do demonstrate."

He pushes away memories of Solas and hopes that for this moment, just this one, he will be enough. He hasn't seen her in years, Mythal's campaign against her secretive plotters having stretched out for too long. There is color in her cheeks and her hair is at her hips now.

She still has not accepted their healing techniques; her arm is ever missing, she is ever broken, and ever lovely and perfect.

He hopes she has missed him.

Her lips are soft and pliant, and she watches him with a quirked brow as he allows himself an instant to inhale her scent. Then he is kissing her as he recalls Solas doing, one arm around her waist and the other encircling her shoulders. He tips her backward, parts her lips with his tongue, trepidation making a fluttering bird out his heart, and she responds in kind. He wonders if she might invite him to her quarters, and the thought makes him pant against her cheek before he resumes his exploration.

He thinks she laughs into his mouth.

He doesn't want to dwell on it.

She breaks away from him and he feels his face fall. Lavellan gives his lips a small, parting peck; they are still wet with him and for a heartbeat he thinks she might pull him back, but she does not.

"They call you Fen'Harel now," Lavellan says, pensive. She plays with his hair for he is still holding her very tightly. "The Dread Wolf was a terrifying creature during my childhood, but I am not afraid of you."

"Come with me," he asks. "I am more now. I can give you anything."

Lavellan shakes her head. Her smile is distant. "It would be unwise," she says.

Those words do not belong to her.

_It would be unwise, Solas uttered time and again, a sick mantra of his restraint._

"I will stay with Mythal," she concludes. "You may visit me."

"Will you come eventually?"

She does not answer directly. "When you do come, you may kiss me as you wish," Lavellan says instead, giving his cheek a pat before disentangling herself from him.

He feels cold.

"Fen'Harel," Lavellan tries his name on her tongue anew. "I am not averse to it."

"I am glad."

She slips between his fingers like water.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter and it's over!


	4. Solas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's no more than his nature.

He visits her when flowers perish to the first frost.

Lavellan doesn't notice him until she is finished with her passage, but when she does close the book, marking the page with a finger, her smile is radiant.

"Hello," she says, eyes warm and voice warmer still. "That is some very shiny armor you have there. I am blinded."

"Forgive me," Fen'Harel says, stepping aside so morning light filtered through the mosaic window does not fall upon him.

"Sit," she says, patting the empty space beside her. "How do you fare?"

This easy familiarity of theirs isn't what he craves; it is too gentle. She is so very kind to him, and he feels quite the hypocrite for desiring more.

He guides her chin upward and leans down to press a greeting kiss to her lips.

"Good morning," Lavellan offers a second welcome, still smiling as she tugs him down so that he settles at her side.

He wonders if he made it good or if it were already so before his arrival.

"On dhea," he whispers against her mouth before giving in. "I am tired."

"Rest then."

She allows him to stay, but all he can do is glance at her fingers as they flip page after page, at her eyes as they run over the lines, at her mouth as it silently shapes words. Little, lovely gestures that are in no way addressed to him.

She gives him nothing, but he is eager to take what can be stolen.

He stares at his feet and remains beside her until his bones begin to ache. And then some more.

She does not kiss him.

*

He visits her when morning dew has returned to adorn the petals of a blossom that bears a suspicious resemblance to the Crystal Grace of Solas' memories.

Perhaps he is just being hopeful.

Times passes and she is gentle, but she is also distant. Lavellan is all carefully selected words and reserved smiles and innocent touches. He can't break her facade and she is unwilling to let him try.

Until she isn't gentle any longer, but frightened. A spooked hare about to flee, though he's pressed no arrow to her throat.

He frays at the edges.

"There is paint on your hands," she says with such horror that he is in shambles once again.

"Yes," Fen'Harel replies.

"Leave," she orders.

"Please," he begs, reaching for her, tracing the small of her back with his warm palm. She is soft and it's a secret he shouldn't know. "How have I offended you?"

Lavellan cannot meet his gaze. She trembles when he touches her. Shrugs him off and rakes her nails down her throat and exposed collarbone.

"I do not wish to see you," she says, voice low and weak, splintering in tandem with his sanity.

She does not kiss him.

*

He visits her when the moon is high in the sky and the only flower is her wine-stained mouth.

"Will you not dance?" Lavellan asks. "Take your pleasure. Find a partner. Many would appreciate having your favor tonight."

She enjoys the festivities, he can tell. It is in the curve of her lips and the sheen on her brow, the lone droplet of wine which her tongue captures, and the drumming of her fingers over the goblet. But she remains ever the stranger as she retreats into the shadow of a great Sylvanwood and watches from afar.

"I have no desire to."

"Solas danced," she remarks, voice trailing off. "Once. He danced only once." A stifled sound, barely a breath.

"He danced with you."

He feels her slipping away again, her mind relinquishing its last tether, and he is quick to grasp at whatever strands remain. Perhaps he can keep her on the knife's edge forever -- it is tiring, but not unpleasant, and he delights in the fog of reverie which makes her smile at him rather than look through.

"But I am not Solas," he is quick to remind her.

"No," Lavellan agrees, very slowly and equally warily, "you are not, Fen'Harel."

"I am sorry."

"Don't be. I've often told you not to strive for that. His name isn't a badge of honor."

"Your misunderstand me," he says, shaking his head and retrieving the goblet from her once it is empty. "I am sorry I can't be enough."

Lavellan sighs, dragging a hand down her face. He recognizes her look as one of exasperation and feels very small again. "It's not about whether you are enough or not," she says.

"Then enlighten me for I am tired of being a mirror image. You look at me but never see my eyes."

"Oh," she says, smile fading into a pained expression. " _Oh_. But you've become cold."

The words are harsh and he regrets their effect, feeling very much the devoted dog once again as he clasps her hand and grazes it with a kiss in apology.

But it is she who speaks the words which tumble from his lips after their every encounter.

_Forgive me for not being him._

_Forgive me for always crawling back whenever it seems you've found your peace._

"Forgive me," Lavellan murmurs. "I never meant for this to be so."

She assumes the blame for something he fails to understand, a knowledge so abstract and intimate he'd have to be _him_ to comprehend. And so he stands vigil on the outside, as is their agreement.

She does not kiss him.

*

He takes a dagger to his hair and sends his armor to be melted.

He dons the garb of a drifter, fine fabrics but unassuming colors making him one with every scenery.

He dismisses his servants and removes their vallaslin as a parting gift, even if it is one none requested.

"I cannot say I didn't feel the change," says Mythal, "but what is the meaning of this, old friend?"

"I am not one to be worshiped," Fen'Harel responds. "I did not crush a silent uprising in your name to step into the role of those who wanted you gone and the people marked like cattle. You are a benevolent master, but I refuse to be one at all."

Mythal caresses his cheek. "I have ruined you, have I not? Devotion is a deadly weapon to command."

In another lifetime, he burned a world in her memory.

Indeed, devotion would always bring him to his knees.

*

He does not know what to make of the look Lavellan gives him.

But it is not dismay or regret.

It will have to suffice.

"Do not push me away," he says, fingers trailing through her hair as he brings her closer. Perhaps it's rough, certainly not gentle, but she is pliant in his arms and that in itself is a twisted form of encouragement.

But Lavellan simply says, "All right," as she accepts his lips upon hers.

He loathes that statement.

She gasps and she sighs and she embraces him back as he always wanted. She laughs into his mouth, teeth nipping at his lower lip, as she whispers, "You will have to hold me; I can't brace myself very well with one arm."

But it does not last because he wants her beneath him, sweetly submissive, not guiding him through the motions as she's done for years, here hesitating, here retreating.

"What have you done to your beautiful hair?" Lavellan sighs in the afterglow as he holds her. His fingers dig into her ribs and he rests his chin on her head; if she so much as wiggles, his grip on her tightens. "It is a mess," she says.

"I don't wish to be recognized."

She pushes at him again, trying to stand. "Let me go, Fen'Harel."

"And allow you to run again?" he questions, grim.

She isn't smiling. Neither is he.

"You will come with me," he continues. "You cannot abuse Mythal's hospitality forever."

And that does strike a nerve indeed. This is nothing like the pained, grieving anger she threw his way when he agreed to allow Compassion to impersonate her departed friend. Not even close to the mask of exasperation she wears whenever he is too insistent.

She hits him, and the strength of it surprises him enough for his muscles to go slack. The years softened her physique of steel; it's unexpected to find out her blows can still bruise bone.

"That is low," Lavellan says. She doesn't scream, doesn't look at him. "Why don't you mark me with your vallaslin while you're at it? I saw the design, it would bring out my cheekbones. My Keeper suggested golden ink when I came of age and I accepted -- it suited me nicely -- but go ahead and pick whatever shade is to your liking."

He is tired of the chase, but he knows he'll run until his paws are bloody. They already are.

She does not kiss him.

*

Lavellan accepts his finely crafted apology of flowery words and honeyed tones.

"I tried so hard," she says, finally breaking, "I tried so very hard to keep you from it."

"To keep me from what, ma vhenan?"

She does not wince at the endearment and he breathes it again and again. Speaks it into her hair as he embraces her from behind. Peppers her neck and exposed shoulder with every desperate declaration she forced him to suppress. And maybe she'll push him away yet again, but for now he will enjoy this.

"I don't want you bitter and resentful. I don't want all of this to come full circle and watch you destroy yourself again."

"I will not burn your world." Such an odd promise to make.

"My world does not exist yet. And who is to say what you will do once it is born? You've hardened your heart already. What will remain of it by then? What will you become?"

"I will go into exile. Mythal is just. She will rule as she always has, with mercy and kindness. The rest of our kin have pledged their loyalty to her. Perhaps in time she will dispose of the blood writing, and I will be there to witness it, but until it is so I refuse to be more than I am."

Lavellan turns. Her hand goes to his face and his slide down to her hips. She looks at him -- she sees.

"I pray that will be enough for you," she says. "For him, it never was."

He presses their foreheads together; he can taste her breath, smell the lilac and juniper of her hair, something of the past and a hint of the present. "I am not him. I ceased trying to be long ago."

Lavellan laughs, a self-deprecating and low sound deep in her throat. "No, I'm afraid you are."

She does not kiss him.

She allows him to kiss her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have some angst with a happyish ending for Vday. Thank you for sticking with me ^_^


End file.
